Many people use email frequently throughout any given day. Whether for work or pleasure, email has persisted as a stable medium through which people stay in touch with co-workers, friends, etc., despite the rise and prevalence of other messaging platforms in the Internet age, such as instant messaging and social media. Email has allowed people to form and maintain contacts over time that would not have persisted without email. However, due to the pervasive use of email, the majority of the working day for many professionals and other users is dedicated to reviewing and responding to email communications.
In addition to email, some people interface with other data sources for their work or personal use. Information contained in email communications may be used to update those data sources. However, having to switch between email and one or more other data sources, matching senders of emails with records in the other data sources, and updating those data sources can be very time consuming and error prone.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.